All the Best Podcast Episode 48: “Looking Forward: Avoiding a Vaccine Cold War” A recap featuring world renown scientists and doctors discussing the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. Murphy: The 41st president, George H. W. Bush, was known for many things, but one of which was truly the leader of a team, the assemblage of a team, the inspiration of a team. He had three aspects that he shared with me. He said in crucial things, unity, in important things, diversity and in all things generosity. George: In the first place, I believe that character is a part of being President. Barbara: And life really must have joy. Sam: This is "All the Best." The official podcast of the George and Barbara Bush Foundation. I'm your host, Sam LeBlond, one of their many grandchildren. Here, we celebrate the legacy of these two incredible Americans through friends, family, and the foundation. This is "All the Best." George: I remember something my dad taught me. He said, write your mother, serve your country, and he said, tell the truth. And I've tried to do that in public life. All through it. Barbara: You are a human being first and those human connections with children, with friends are the most important investments you will ever make. George: We stand tonight before a new world of hope and possibilities for our children. A world we could not have contemplated a few years ago. Sam: On behalf of our family and the George and Barbara Bush Foundation. This is "All the Best." ATB Podcast – Vaccine Recap Oct 2020 2 Welcome to "All the Best." I'm your host, Sam LeBlond. Thirty years ago, my grandfather, George H.W. Bush was instrumental in the end of the Cold War by working closely and collaboratively with allies around the world. In that Cold War, world superpowers controlled nuclear warheads, which then wielded tremendous influence on the less powerful world. Fast forward to today and we're now facing a different kind of cold war. In the last nine months, the global pandemic of COVID-19 has turned into one of the greatest challenges our world has faced in the 21st century. In this cold war, super powers continue to wield influence over the less powerful world, but this time by controlling life-saving vaccines. To prevent this future from becoming a reality, our charge is not only a nation but as a global society, is to avert countries from devolving into a vaccine cold war by building a coalition through a coordinated worldwide effort On September 17th, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation, together with the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, hosted a discussion called "Looking Forward: Avoiding a Vaccine Cold War," which featured the world's leading authorities to discuss the realities of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, which was moderated by former "All the Best" guest, Dr. Martin Murphy. On today's episode, we're going to share some of our favorite moments from this discussion, hearing from leading world experts and their incredible work on the road to a vaccine and their fight against COVID-19. All this while embodying my grandparents' spirit of service and cooperation. Here's Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of "Wellcome Trust," a London-based medical research charity. He starts things off with the reality of the current state of COVID-19. Jeremy: I still think that the world is underestimating where we stand. This is a human endemic infection, now it's not going away. It will reverberate around the world for many, many years to come. It will damage health, of course, but I like to phrase this in four overlapping circles. The direct impact on health is tragic as we've seen in every country in the world. There's the indirect consequences of COVID on all of the other health issues; vaccination, cancer care, care of the elderly, diabetics have suffered during this. The third one is it's discombobulated economies; trade, education, trust in government. And then the fourth is the impact on geopolitics, which of course this foundation has been so important over many years in arguing for multi-lateralism. We run the risk of COVID turning us into another polariZed cold war and epidemics, which we must avoid and which I'd implore the George and Barbara Bush Foundation to ATB Podcast – Vaccine Recap Oct 2020 3 push forward. So I think we mustn't underestimate where we are or the challenges of getting out of this. Sam: But how did we get here? Here's Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist for the World Health OrganiZation. Dr. Swaminathan: The global preparedness monitoring board presented their report. It's called "A World in Disorder." And essentially at the same time, last year, they presented a report which actually warned the world about such a thing happening, the possibility of a pandemic and the fact that the world is not prepared. Unfortunately, this happened all too soon and within a few months of them presenting that report, which said the world was ill- prepared, we were in the midst of a massive pandemic with this new virus, which has many properties, which make it quite difficult to contain and control. Sam: So then, how do you address a virus that's so difficult to contain and control? Dr. Swaminathan: So now we have only one way forward. Solidarity is the only way out of this situation because the virus doesn't respect borders, it doesn't respect nationalities or politics. It looks for vulnerabilities and it exploits them. And where it sees division, where it sees discord, that's where the virus is going to spread. On the positive side, I've seen tremendous global cooperation, collaboration, and the willingness to work together among scientists, among doctors, among healthcare workers, researchers coming together to develop the tools that are going to help us end this pandemic, whether it's new diagnostics, better drugs and treatments, and of course, vaccines that eventually are the best hope for us to put an end, at least, to the acute phase of the pandemic. And that's where, WHO I think was quite instrumental in bringing together the R&D blueprint, which is a framework for how to do research on novel pathogens. And so very quickly in February, we convened about 400 scientists and came up with a research roadmap that already laid out what the knowledge gaps were at that point. This is a new virus, we knew very little about it and what the top priorities were. We've come a long way since then. There's been open sharing of knowledge, all journals have basically removed paywalls so that knowledge is freely available. And I think that's our hope, and that is what people would like to see. Now, if we had the same thing happening at the political level, then of course it would be I think, a win-win for all. But I do think that on the science side, including the establishment of The ACT Accelerator, there's been a tremendous coming together and a willingness to bring our complimentary ATB Podcast – Vaccine Recap Oct 2020 4 strengths in order to achieve the goal much faster than if we had all continued to work in our silos. Sam: You may be wondering what exactly is The ACT Accelerator. Here's Dr. Swaminathan again. Dr. Swaminathan: The ACT Accelerator was launched on the 24th of April by the President of European Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Director-General, Dr. Tedros, and a host of other world leaders. And the accelerator has two big goals. One is to accelerate the development of these new tools that we just talked about; the diagnostics, the drugs, and the vaccines, but also to ensure equitable access because all too often in the past, the rich countries, and those who have been able to afford for these technologies, get them decades ahead of people living in poor countries or poor people living in high income countries. So the quest is not only to get those new tools developed, but to ensure that they actually get to people who need them, regardless of where they live. We've achieved a lot. It's only been four months, but already there have been several successes. And the next few months are really going to be very, very critical if this is to succeed. Sam: The ACT Accelerator has, in fact, accomplished a lot. And that's exactly the type of coalition that I know would have made my grandparents proud. But what is our status in achieving a successful vaccine? Here's Dr. Richard Hatchett, the CEO for The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI. Dr. Hatchett: When COVID-19 emerged in late December, CEPI went on high alert and we very rapidly moved to develop vaccine candidates. And within a few weeks in early January, we realiZed that we would have to actually develop these candidates, not just to have them in the freeZer, but to take them into clinical trials and to scale them up because of the threat that we were facing. It was very apparent by January 24th, 25th, that we were likely facing an incipient pandemic. Over the last nine months, CEPI as an organiZation has provided funding for nine vaccine candidates. Eight of those are now in human clinical trials, two are in phase three, the last stage of testing.